Wii Menu 4.3 brings performance upgrades, removes homebrew

by JC Fletcher on Jun 22nd 2010 10:30AM

Over the last day or so, a message has gradually disseminated through North America's Wii systems, alerting users to a new Wii Menu update (we personally received it at around 1AM EST). Wii Menu 4.3 doesn't add any neat features to the user experience; rather, it seems focused entirely on taking features away from swarthy pirates and unlucky homebrewers.

"Because unauthorized channels or firmware may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.3 will check for and automatically remove such unauthorized files," Nintendo says on its support site, repeating a message found in every firmware update . "In addition, there are some behind the scenes enhancements that do not affect any prominently-used features or menus but will improve system performance."

Improved system performance is always a good thing, of course, but the text makes it sound like this is secondary to the main goal of taking another pass at everyone's Wiis to search for unauthorized software.

Source: Nintendo Support

Tags: firmware, nintendo, piracy, wii, wii-menu, wii-menu-4-3, wii-menu-update

Reader Comments (84)

good thing I dont play Wii online. guess Ill avoid this update.

@Rahabib and don't forget, you never need to update your wii, any version can load all games, and play online.

@Rahabib

You'll also have to avoid purchasing any new upcoming games (Sin & Punishment, for instance), as they'll force the upgrade on you before they'll let you play them.

@Mr Fister,

not if you're loading your games from a usb storage device (which makes loading times almost non-existant in most games) via homebrew channel.

@Rahabib

I wonder if people know that you can disable/block updates yet...

*whistles innocently*

@germdove

That's not true. Some games do require the updates because they require the newer IOS files to play.

@Rahabib

You can play online all you want, it doesn't check which system version you have (and many games, such as those from EA and Capcom, use their own servers for online play instead of Nintendo's).

What you DO need to be aware is that the WiiConnect24 option does download updates automatically, even if you're not playing online at all. Disable that and you can stay online as much as you want.

@Vidikron,

that's true, but via homebrew channel you can also install the new IOS without installing the update.

@vmenge

That's true, but the point is that sometimes you have to update whether you're doing official updates or updating your hack. So it's inaccurate to tell someone that they never have to update and can still play any game. If nothing else, we don't even know if the OP is using a hacked Wii or not.

@Mr Fister WRONG!!! u guys need to read up on how to CORRECTLY hack ur wii's, if u do then u would have already realized that in the preloader program there is an option that stops ur wii from auto updating and an option to stop ur new games from forcing u to update, in other words, u never have to update for any reason, if u get a new game, u can still play it without updating. just get preloader and put in the hack notepad file in ur sd card where preloader will read it which should be the root part of the sd card and the file has to be save as a special ext and then u won't have to worry about updates. if u want proof of what i said, then send a message to my youtube account darkstylezvideo and i'll film my wii and my preloader options to prove it to everyone.

The wii is starting to look really dated..
It was quite the let down system for me, bought, played for a week, and now it sits in its box buried under other things in my closet.

@Sled I bought mine just as an emulator for old titles. It works brilliantly as a SNES, NES, Scumv and GBA emulator. Whops, I guess this firmware update isn't for me... *whistle so no one suspects me*.

@Sled
Your comment is extremely insightful and relevant. I have never heard anything like it.

@Sled Perhaps you should consider buying some games for it, then, as the Wii has quite a few good ones! :-)

@Sled

it may look undated to you, but its still an amazing console to play with your family.

@Sled

Shows you have good decisionmaking capabilities, huh?

@Sled

Dayumm... you finished Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Muramasa, Punch Out!, MadWorld, Twilight Princess, World of Goo, Lost Winds 1 and 2, Light Trax, the whole Bit.Trip series, Metroid Prime 3, NSMBW, Dead Space Extraction, and Zack and Wiki all in one week??? You are HARDCORE.

Yeah, improved performance would be great, but it's all a lie to sugar coat taking away your homebrew features, just like it was in 4.2 when they said the exact same thing.

@germdove

HEY NINTENDO - Gimme an "expansion pack" like the N64 so we can play games in "HD"! :D

In Nintendo's mind , removing piracy increases performance. That is all they meant.

I just want Nintendo to update so that I can have the ability to move the game/channel windows around easily.

actually, there have been some games that if you play online force you to firmware upgrade. I think it was Mario Kart or the Conduit did for me.

@Digital Viking, yep, that's what I did! I absolutely refuse to buy any VC games until Nintendo (and its third parties) decides to release at LEAST one of the following: Final Fantasy VI, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Hybrid Heaven, Mystical Ninja 64, Goemon's Great Adventure, Bomberman 64-2: The Second Attack, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox and/or Seiken Densetsu 3. But, we all know that they will never release them. Can't they even emulate the SuperFX chip? Oh, wait, that's right! I can play 95% of these games pretty much perfectly on emulators anyway! I don't think I'll ever by another VC game again. Heck, I don't even have WiiConnect24 enabled anymore; I don't want them to update the firmware without my consent, now do I?

Also I will wait to update until I hear it s safe. Didn't the last update brick a bunch of systems?

You know, I never had this problem before, but I thought this kind of thing got fixed?

@maemikemae

It did. In fact, the homebrew software they targeted was updated to the new Wii system menu in less than a week, while lots of people with unmodified Wiis got it bricked. That happened because the new system version updated the console's main boot file; if something happened during the update, such as a power failure, that file would get corrupted and the system wouldn't initialize anymore.

Pretty much like what happens with DRM software, this update did more damage to the legitimate consumers than to the pirated consoles. :P

Nope, you can get around it.

I believe Wii Sports Resort did as well.

Yep, but there's plenty of ways around those upgrades if, for some reason, you wanted to not perform them.

ugh sorry its posting in the wrong spot for some reason.

I read wii and performance upgrades in the same sentence and laughed then I read removes homebrew and laughed even louder.

Yep its old-hat, it breaks down to

"We are removing the homebrew channel again, you Pirates!"
"and we might or might not have made some changes that might or might not improve system performance but you won't notice them."

I'll probably patch in a week or two to see if there is any Wii bricking involved in this patch.

If he was going to purchase a game he wouldn't be worrying about the update, amirite?

That's why you use Gecko to load them. You don't need to update. I'll never give up my ability to play Japanese and European Wii games.

You can install the IOSes you need to play the games separate of system menu updates. So you can have an old system menu and still play new games.

I would like it if Wii allowed games to patch themselves.

I think that would have helped Conduit and the original Raving Rabbids (which was broken in that the highest level was unable to be achieved due to problems with the music/drum-beat/dance system).

Woot reply fail.

If it means anything it sounds like some of the upcoming games will be/require patching from the disk if you don't have the most current Wii OS.

My guess is any first party Nintendo games will be guaranteed Update from disk from this year on, at least Zelda. I mean that's pure speculation but if I was Nintendo that's what I'd do.

replying to MrFister...

uamwrong!

Could care less about the patch one way or the other as it doesn't add anything meaningful. More so calling them out on releasing a patch, the soul purpose of which is to remove the home brew channel with some fluff tacked on.

Since the last patch apparently bricked some Wii consoles, I'd rather wait a few to see how this one acts, as I would much rather have My Wii working when the new zelda comes out (the soul reason I got a Wii) If that means waiting a week or two with my ear to the ground to make sure this patch is safe, So be it.

I hope this doesn't break the fan translation patch for Fatal Frame 4. I'm still looking to import that.

Just to play devils advocate here, it is Nintendo's right to regulate what is used on their consoles, and if homebrew is used mostly for pirating games then they have the right to eliminate it. No one really bemoans Sony or Microsoft for doing stuff like this as well.

@RobS the 3rd
They don't bemoan Sony?!?!?

The last update for the PS3 removed the Install Other OS feature - that maybe, MAYBE will be used in the FUTURE (meaning, no one's using it now) for pirating. Not only people complained, but some SUED Sony because of this.

I wouldn't say they're right, but people certainly do bemoan this kind of thing in other consoles too.

@RobS the 3rd Umm.. no.

I bought it. It's mine. It's my right to use it in any way I see fit.

@fabiosooner

The difference here is that Nintendo never advertised homebrew as a feature of the Wii. Sony not only advertised the OtherOS functionality but they even said that they *wouldn't* remove it in future firmware updates as late as February of this year.

Also, as far as homebrew on the Wii goes, the Wii's interesting hardware is the Wiimote and that can easily interface with a computer with Bluetooth. The PS3's interesting hardware is the Cell which is a little more expensive to acquire outside of the PS3. The only homebrew I would want to play around with on my Wii is something like the user patches for SSBB which I hear are not affected by this.

On a somewhat related note I think that with the Cell not hitting desktop PCs the way it was promised and Sony (illegally) removing the use of PS3s as a development platform for Cell means that it will slowly die and the PS4 will just use PowerPC or x86 archs.

I doubt there is any improvement in performance at all. I will avoid this update.

The 'performance upgrades' never actually do anything. This is just to kill piracy (which nintendo has every right to do, I suppose), but I wish they didn't feel the need to lie about it.

Just say 'this patch kills piracy for a few weeks' and leave it at that. Don't try to make it sound like it's a good thing for the end-user.

my stupid f*ucking brother updated his Wii and got the WiiBrew channel removed ugh

@s ls Thats why you block all updates with PriiLoader... i mean, uh, thats what i heard but i have idea what it means.

Is this why my Wii starts glowing blue even though it is off?

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Wii Menu 4.3 brings performance upgrades, removes homebrew

Reader Comments (84)

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:34AM Rahabib said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:39AM germdove said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:51AM Mr Fister said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:57AM vmenge said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:11PM OptimumEDGE said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:22PM Vidikron said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:23PM fabiosooner said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 1:07PM vmenge said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 3:17PM Vidikron said

Posted: Jun 25th 2010 6:26PM darkstylez said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:36AM Sled said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:39AM Digital Viking said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:42AM Patrick Bateman said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:47AM ilduce620 said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 1:03PM shadowhowl1900 said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 1:36PM Mr Khan said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 2:22PM greyseal said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:37AM germdove said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:25AM Chibi Chaingun said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:23PM Elranzer said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:38AM maemikemae said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:44AM Rahabib said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:45AM Rahabib said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:31AM therandomizer said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:39AM maemikemae said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:48AM germdove said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:31PM fabiosooner said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:46AM germdove said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:51AM BigE4284 said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:51AM heltoupee said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:47AM Rahabib said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:50AM fusionspill said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:51AM Scuffles said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:59AM Patrick Bateman said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:01PM Ujn Hunter said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 5:12PM Even Adder said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:58AM Squashua said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:18AM Scuffles said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:00AM Patrick Bateman said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:07AM Scuffles said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 10:59AM MLS said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 11:07AM RobS the 3rd said

Posted: Jun 22nd 2010 12:38PM fabiosooner said

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Posted: Jun 28th 2010 6:16AM Psykechan said

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